


Cradle Broken Glass

by dugindeep (hotsauce)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending, Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotsauce/pseuds/dugindeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has seen a lot of shit in his life, including his brother dying for the umpteenth time and rising back up with resilience. But it's the thing he misses that will be the most trouble. Alternate Ending to "Do You Believe in Miracles?" and thus spoilers to the final moments of 9.23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cradle Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Pearl Jam's "Black". Within 24 hours, I was spoiled on what happens in those last moments, so when I finally watched the finale last night, it felt extremely uneventful. I wish it would've gone something more like this ...

_And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass of what was everything_

Sam slumps against the table, pouring the very last drops of whiskey and downing it like water. At this point, it could be for all he cares, or can even taste. He rolls the empty bottle in his hand, reads every word on that label, thinks about how many times Dean must’ve done the very same. Maybe Dean knew every word here; the maker’s story about family and pride, even the address of the bottler, or the exact alcohol content: 42. Sam runs his thumb over that number, stupidly wonders why they didn’t just round it out. Forty or forty-five would sound more definitive somehow, and he hears Dean’s voice bitch about the very same and mention that they should’ve gotten a better bottle.

A smile flits across his face until he grinds his teeth together at the memory of setting his brother down in his bed for the very last time.

His fingers clench around the glass and he imagines it crushing in his fist, but he drops it before he gets too far. It clunks on the table then turns over, slowly rolling towards the edge of the table yet never falling. Just teetering on fate. Kind of like their lives always did.

Sam isn’t sure who he’s more pissed at now ... Crowley for getting them into this mess, Dean for taking on the mark, or himself for not being able to bring his brother another chance at life.

He just might have been telling the truth when he told Dean he wouldn't have saved him, if the shoe was on the other foot. Or maybe he’s just too chicken shit to put himself into Crowley's hands, and now his brother will remain on the other side of the veil.

With a deep inhale and shaky hands, Sam shoves the palms of his hands against his eyes. Mostly to clear more tears that just won’t die, but also in the hopes that he can wipe away the past year, erase their slate, and pretend there weren't things like angels and knights of hell who could tear up what was left of their family.

He flinches when he hears a shuffle from down the hall. His spine straightens with chills spreading over his skin. Then another shuffle, and a few more growing closer, until Sam jumps out of his chair with fists raised high like a sloppy, drunk fighter—just like he is. 

Then he gasps.

Dean stands there just outside the library, still bloodied and grimy, pale and dazed just as he'd been in his last breathing moments. 

Sam's mouth drops and he fights for air, but he can’t manage to breathe. "How?" he barely gasps.

Dean's eyes slowly rise to meet Sam's then take a slow glance around the room, as if finding his bearings after a long trip into the bottle. But this isn’t the same as those long nights when Dean has drowned his own demons in whiskey. This is life and death and something beyond the two, but Sam can’t comprehend how. 

A tiny part of him doesn’t want to.

Especially not when Dean opens his mouth and whispers a needy, "Sammy?"

Sam takes long strides to embrace his brother, wraps his arms around Dean's back and crushes them together. He shuts his eyes tightly and buries his face into the musty, worn-out flannel over Dean's shoulder. There’s still blood and dirt, but Sam forgets what had happened out at that empty warehouse, and begins to thank Go---no, just the world, that his brother is standing upright once again.

He holds on like a child with its blanket. Like a mother not daring to lose a child in a crowd. Just like he's not daring to lose Dean again.

He prays to Cas, their parents, Bobby, Ellen and Jo, anyone he can think of who had been on their side of each and every war in the last decade. He thanks Dean for rising once more. He even plans on how they can hunker down here and live out the rest of their lives in the bunker. It’ll take a lot of gas station whiskey and ho-hos, the monthly _Busty Asian Babes_ , and maybe, if Dean will let him without scathing comments from the peanut gallery, a bag of grapes and apples every so often.

Sam does a lot of things right here while promising them both so many future memories. But what he doesn’t do is see that Dean's eyes have been closed just as tightly as Sam's are. That Crowley stands above the library with a bird’s eye view of this resurrection. And he definitely doesn’t see when Dean’s eyelids slide apart to reveal blackness and emptiness and a promise of trouble to come.

And it’s possible he won’t for a long time.


End file.
